Apparently, the Romans … how many times have you seen that statement as the opening to some surprising revelation. What a clever people they seem to have been and how much was lost when their empire went into retreat. You hear so much about their lifestyles, good and bad, and the idea that they used the creativity found in their empire rather than be inventors themselves but they must have been geniuses in organisation. It seems to have been the ability to deliver solutions in far flung places rather than central powerhouse of ideas that made them successful for so long.

Anyway, apparently the Romans were the first to regularly use glass as a means of making an artificial environment for growing plants out of their normal season. Some Roman Emperor only liked one type of fruit and wanted it all year round. Greenhouses, are now in every garden and of course glass, or polycarbonate, is relatively cheap now (not so in the Roman days, but I suppose the Emperor could afford it). I like to think that the greenhouse I am building has a little bit of character. Firstly, it is handmade from reclaimed timber and polycarbonate that I have collected and secondly it is built on an existing brick and stone stand in the garden that was something else many years ago. In the style of lean to greenhouses that were once commonplace in working gardens it is meant to do just that: work. I am hoping it will extend our growing season to allow us fresh salad, if not all year round, then for a good part of it.

We actually started growing our own food by planting seeds in containers dotted around the garden and yard, and by making our own compost using waste food of the table. If I were to write a guide to organic vegetable gardening for beginners, though, it would be mainly an exhortation to get out and get started and let the experience come. We tried tomatoes and peppers over the last few years: the tomatoes bore fruit but the peppers dropped their flowers before anything formed- our Cumbrian summers have not been to the ‘Swallows and Amazon’ standards as of late. This led me to start the greenhouse, though. I don’t think we will be eating home grown tomatoes and peppers on Christmas Day but we might try.